Changes in Institutional Research in Germany. AIR 1991 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper recounts the legal, political, and educational changes in former East Germany as the nation has become reunified, and considers the implications of reunification for institutional research at East German universities. After a brief sketch of legal, geographic, and demographic highlights, the decrepit conditions of East German university buildings are noted. The paper then offers observations of East Germans streaming across the border when it was first opened in November 1989. The educational experience of a typical East German student is reviewed, noting that a file was kept documenting the student's political attitudes to ensure the power of the Communist Party bureaucracy in determining the student's access to higher education. Problems that institutions of higher education now face are noted, including identifying whom to fire, what to do with educators trained to teach Marxism-Leninism and the Communist infused humanities, social sciences, and especially, economics and jurisprudence. Efforts by the West to help East German universities are mentioned. (DB)